Colorado State University librarians conducted five focus groups with thirty-one faculty, research scientists, and research associates. The groups explored: (1) The nature of data sets that these researchers create or maintain; (2) How participants manage their data; (3) Needs for support that the participants identify in relation to sharing,…

This report suggests that Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan's "Five Laws of Library Science" can be reordered and reinterpreted to reflect today's library resources and services, as well as the behaviors that people demonstrate when engaging with them. Although authors Senior Research Scientist Lynn Silipigni Connaway and Associate Research…

Since children develop the critical language and early reading skills necessary to enter kindergarten between birth and age five, reading aloud is one of the most influential steps librarians, teachers, parents, and caregivers can take to foster preschoolers' literacy skills. Early exposure to books heavily influences vocabulary knowledge, which…

In the past 15 years a number of school shootings have captured international attention and sparked heated debates. In the aftermath of such tragedies, those directly affected and people from all walks of life expressed their condolences in a variety of ways. Following the tragic events of April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech received tens of thousands…

Learning is a constant in today's library world. Not only the students who use the school libraries, but the adults who facilitate the learning progress of these students are enticed, encouraged, and yes, sometimes, even forced to learn new things at alarming rates. Professional development (PD) must occur regularly in order to keep the library…

The paper analyzes problems of theorizing and evaluating a short series of "Library Academy" events within a Carnegie Corporation-funded project to improve library service to researchers in six South African universities. (Contains 1 table.)

School librarians can assume an important role in preserving and perpetuating the oral tradition. The same skills and techniques when telling a personal story can be transmitted to telling various kinds of stories from literature and history. For school librarians to be successful storytellers, they need to select stories that they like and enjoy…

This article describes digital badging, which turns the traditional cloth badges into digital data with badges earned and stored online. It notes how digital badging systems help people issue and achieve learning challenges in a sequence such as this: (1) A badge issuer creates a challenge using an online badging tool such as P2PU.org,…

The current status of multicultural and diversity efforts suggests the need for incorporating into the discussion of librarianship an understanding of previously underrepresented populations such as the American Indian. American Indian Studies speaks from the American Indian perspective and addresses the contemporary condition of American Indians.…

Systematic evaluation of a library's collection can be a useful tool for collection development. After reviewing three evaluation methods and their usefulness for our small academic library, I undertook a usage-based evaluation, focusing on narrow segments of our collection that served specific undergraduate courses. For each section, I collected…

This paper presents the findings of a study on funding of the library at the University of Benin in relation to the recurrent budget implementation during the 1992/93 to 1996/97 academic sessions. The findings indicated that the library depended on the central administrations's allocation for its funding. It also showed that the University of…

With the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University, the author has begun to build an open-access digital repository for poetry chapbooks. The repository is essentially a chapbook exchange: a place for poets to share their current works. Users are invited to share their chapbooks via upload and as such gain access to the chapbook repository.…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to present an overview of the two open source (OS) integrated library systems (ILS)--Koha and ABCD (ISIS family), to compare their "next-generation library catalog" functionalities, and to give comparison of other important features available through ILS modules. Design/methodology/approach: Two open source…

Libraries today are determined to meet the expanding needs of their patrons by keeping their services and book collections up-to-date with the rapidly growing technological advances. Many have adapted to the innovative changes seamlessly by integrating new technology trends such as: (1) purchasing more ebook titles; (2) using social media sites…

The open access (OA) movement is working to transform scholarly communication around the world, but this philosophy can also apply to metadata and cataloging records. While some notable, large academic libraries, such as Harvard University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Cambridge, released their cataloging records under OA…